NUMBERTIME Photocopiable Activity Book By Barbara Allebone and Lesley Jones BBC Education Pounds 9.99 Age range 4 - 5
Each section in this book, which accompanies the Numbertime BBC television series, focuses on a different number, 1 to 10, in order, and includes a page of notes for the teacher and three or four photocopiable sheets, with minimal or no text, for children.
The teachers’ notes are easy to use and include open and closed questions related to the number under investigation, variations and extensions, and instructions for setting up and playing the games and activities provided on the sheets.
The variations and extensions include investigative ideas appropriate to the manipulative skills of young children, eg, to consolidate work on the number “3”, the children are asked to use straws of different lengths to make different triangles.
Although some of the activity sheets support the writing and recognition of number symbols, there is rightly an emphasis on children acquiring the spoken language of number and this is achieved through using and interpreting cardinal and ordinal numbers in a range of contexts, including television.
Whether schools are using the Numbertime series or not, teachers of nursery and reception children should find this book useful to support early-years mathematics and easy to cross-reference to schemes of work.
